This event aims to foster critical reflection on forced migration resulting from conflict, as well as connections and parallels in the experiences of Afro-Colombians with racialized groups and migrants in Canada. The panel will explore the relationship between racism and war from the perspectives and experiences of Black communities in Colombia, based on a comprehensive community-based research process and final report submitted by the National Afro-Colombian Peace Council (Conpa) to the Colombia Truth Commission.  The relationships between extractive projects, displacement and conflict in Afro-Colombian territories, the role of – and effects on – women in the face of racial and gender-based violence, the important role of self-governance and territorial and political rights and contributions to peace will be explored. 

Introduced and Moderated by  Dr. Sheila Gruner

Sheila Gruner is a professor in Community Economic and Social Development (CESD) at Algoma University and an Adjunct Research Faculty at Carleton University. Her research centres on displacement, conflict, land rights, and peace building and she has worked with rural, indigenous and Black communities in Colombia and Canada since the latter 1990s. She acts as a lead for the SSHRC-funded project “Indigenous and Afrodescendants in Colombia: Peace, Territory and Transformation” which has led to the development of the Global Network – Ethnic Peoples and Peace initiative.

Opening Remarks by Dr. Pilar Riano- Alcala

Pilar Riaño-Alcalá is a professor at the Social Justice Institute and co-lead of the Memory and Justice Research Stream. She is an anthropologist and interdisciplinary scholar, whose interests include historical memory and the lived experience and afterlives of violence. She is a member of the Transitional Justice working group of the Global Network – Ethnic Peoples and Peace Initiative

Panelist Discussion: “Understanding the relationship between Racism and War in Colombia – Towards the Non-repetition of Violence and Peaceful Co-existence”

Charo Mina-Rojas (PCN/CONPA); Harrison Cuero Campaz (PCN/CONPA); Esther Ojulari (CODHES)

Charo Mina Rojas – Black Communities’ Process (Proceso de Comunidades Negras- PCN), National Afro-Colombian Peace Council (Conpa) and coordinator for the Report to the Truth Commission on Effects of the War on Afro-Colombian communities. Recently completed an MA on the  impact of the armed conflict on Black Afro-descendent women, from an ethnic and gender perspective.

Esther Ojulari – CODHES (Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement in Colombia) and PhD (candidate) Institute for Commonwealth Studies, University of London. Her research focuses on collective reparations and territorial rights of Afro-descendant communities in Colombia. She is also an author in the edited collection “Fifty Years of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination: A Living Instrument”

Harrinson Cuero Campaz – Afro-Colombian academic working towards a PhD and social leader. Member of the Black  Process Organization focused on defending collective rights, such as identity, territory and self- governance in Colombia. Member of the National Afro-Colombian Peace Council and extractive/territorial rights working group of the Global Network -Ethnic Communities and  Peace  

Questions facilitated by Dr. Luis van Isschot  

Luis van Isschot is a professor at the University of Toronto, a historian of modern Latin America, specializing in the study of social movements, political violence, and human rights.He is a member of the Transitional Justice working group of the Global Network – Ethnic Peoples and Peace Initiative.

Register in advance for this webinar: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vWwbBZF2Roq2POWIYFOOsg

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